


The Second Draft

by samzillastomps



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: (look if you know me you know I am a fluffmonster), Alan is avoiding feels, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventually Mature Content, F/M, Grief, Healing, I want to know how Edith heals, Loss, Sweetness, but for now just two friends who went through a great deal together, but not from her perspective, the continuation nobody asked for haha, told from third person Alan's perspective, will I ever write something that isn't mostly slowburn??
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-04-23 12:47:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14332776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samzillastomps/pseuds/samzillastomps
Summary: After their escape from Allerdale Hall, after the ghosts of their experience settle into their hearts, both Edith and Alan make their way back to New York. In a time that resembles the one before the Sharpes drifted into their lives, Alan seeks to give Edith stability the only way he knows how to. Edith, however, needs something else, something that Alan might not necessarily be able to give.A fic about navigating grief, friendship, romance, past mistakes, and the traitorous way love sometimes rips the very fabric of who we are.





	1. Going Home

She wasn’t speaking.

It shouldn’t really have come as a surprise, not after what she’d been through, and yet the silence in the wake of their escape was startlingly loud. Alan had spoken with her in the frantic carriage ride back to town, the both of them delirious with chattering teeth and trembling flesh. They’d clung to each other for warmth. He had lost so much blood, was so delirous, that he was barely able to walk without her help. When a well-meaning boy in the back had asked if Edith was Alan’s sister, Edith had bravely and barely held back a strangled sob.

At the noise, Alan had scarce known how to stay conscious. Edith had known, of course she had. She’d seen his eyes roll back, and her priorities had shifted back to him. She had regained her calm, firm attitude.

“No. He’s my dear friend,” she’d said to the boy, and then had moved to smooth Alan’s hair back from his face as they rode toward town. “Hold on. Stay awake. Please, Alan, you must stay awake.”

It had been the last time she’d spoken to him. Those disjointed breaths as she'd begged him to stay conscious with her, as she'd told him what she had done to save them. After a while, he had surmised she was speaking to distract herself from her pain almost as much to distract him from his.

They had made their way to warm blankets and safety in time, barely in time. As they'd crossed the threshold of the local clinic, Alan had no memories of what transpired for the next several hours. They had survived, but not without consequences.

Alan considered himself lucky. He had not lost as much blood as he could have; Lucille's first blow had missed his lung, but barely. Thomas had struck true, quick, and missed all vital organs as well. He expected to heal fine from this. Besides taking his time and not climbing any staircases, Alan could still stand on his own with but the help of a cane. Soon, perhaps in a few months’ time, the ache about his healing wounds would hopefully vanish as well.

Edith had not been so fortunate.

Her feet had suffered for the way she’d strode into the icy, bleeding snow. Pieces of flesh on her heel and both of her pinky toes up to the first knuckle had had to be removed. Frostbite, made worse by the bandage on her broken leg catching moisture and holding it cold against her foot in the snow as it unraveled. She had not had to have the entire appendage amputated, a thought which made Alan recoil mentally even as he thanked the Lord for small miracles. Her ankles were marred with rash from the cold that stayed long after her feet were rewarmed, but she had been lucky. She had kept her feet mostly intact.

That had been the elder physician’s words, not Alan’s own. In his opinion, luck had nothing to do with it where Edith was concerned. She was a fighter, had always been able to do whatever she set her mind to. Ironically, Alan fully believed that meant stopping frostbite from taking her foot, too.

Edith had sat silently through it all. She was told that she suffered from many lacerations that had been stitched up as defly as possible. But because of the cold, and the time it took to get to the one on her face, she might be left with scars. On top of that, she suffered from internal damage that would take months of a strictly bland diet to bring even to a manageable level. When asked if she had trouble sleeping, she had merely nodded.

The worst of it was her leg, but in the grand scheme of things it was not as bad as it could have been. The bone had been twisted, but not rebroken. Merely misaligned within her own flesh, the jagged edges of her humerus digging into muscle from beneath. Like a splinter, nestled worse with every jump and step she’d made to get them away from Crimson Peak.

The doctor had told her she would have another surgical consult later that week, to which she had nodded her consent. Edith had then taken a shuddering sigh, and Alan had been positive she was going to say something. A glimmer of the fire that kindled her soul, perhaps, had been alight like summer sun behind her eyes.

But he had merely imagined it. She did not speak at that time, nor at any time after. She had gripped his hand so tightly during that doctor consultation, though, so tightly that it had almost hurt and Alan had wondered where she had gotten her strength. And then the physician had suggested that she would most likely be walking again in a few months.

Alan had been overjoyed. He had felt a strange kind of pride, hearing that despite it all, his friend would overcome this.

But Edith had shaken her head lightly, with a sad smile on her face, as if the doctor had told her there would be sun on the morrow and she smelled rain. She did not believe him. That small gesture, the way her hand had grown limp against his fingers, was enough to push Alan to even quicker recovery.

As soon as he was stitched up, Alan immediately set himself to writing letters. He enlisted the somewhat unwilling help of his sister, begging her pity even though it struck him as perverse to do so. Edith was never one to be felt sorry for. Never.

But his sister took the coaxing like a sugar pill, and she helped arrange the remains of Edith’s estate in half the time it would have taken Alan by himself. It was complicated only in that there were many papers to file and assets to track, given that Edith had technically been unable to marry Thomas Sharpe, seeing as he had already been married. Alan consulted lawyers, and with confidence ascertained that those marriages having ended in untimely deaths were reason enough for Edith to inherit Allerdale Hall. In due time, it was official; Edith was a widow, as she had quipped to his mother that she would prefer to be, and as such would also inherit the sinking mansion and sprawling lands they had left behind.

After a week of travel, they would get back to New York. A week of one-sided conversations, albeit ones that Edith had listened to with at least partial attention. She was not listless, but she seemed to have nothing to say. Alan told her where he was taking her, and she had reached for his hand.

That had been enough.

By the time they set foot on American soil once more, thanks to the help from Eunice and the dogged perseverance with which she and Alan spoke with their lawyers, Alan could breathe again. Without a worry, he could take Edith straight to her father’s renewed estate and settle her back in her home.

Well, the best approximation of her home as she had left it. There would be a great space left behind without Carter there, but Alan had done the best he could given the circumstances to recreate how it had once been.

Some of the furniture was unrecoverable, sold at auction so quickly that they had almost caught fire, but for the most part he had found her home’s items one by one. Alan had arranged for it to be restored as it was. It had cost him, but with the amount of mortality they had faced in the past few days, Alan felt little to no qualms in lightening his bank notes. It was a worthy cause.

His only drive was to bring Edith back to something she knew. Something far from the horrors she’d experienced. Something that could help her speak again, to draw her from the nightmarish memories that she could not have known she would have to endure.

It was the only thing Alan could think of to do in order to reach her.

Outside her home, Edith’s breathing hitched. It was almost as if she was going to cry, or speak, and his heart leapt into his throat, nervous at the prospect of an overt show of emotion. But when Alan glanced down to check on her, she was not crying. She had a faint smile on her lips, a ghost of happiness she once had.

It steeled him. He brought her to her door, greeting the butler and maid respectively with a dip of his head.

“Good afternoon Ms. Cushing,” the maid said immediately as they crossed the threshold.

Alan gave her a warm smile and a nod. She’d done as instructed and used Edith’s maiden name. She had been employed by his mother, and the butler was a relative of one of his patients; his connections had hopefully ensured that Edith was going to be made to feel at ease, and not like a stranger within her own home. As he wheeled her forward, Alan thought he heard a sigh.

He moved to lean down, to listen should Edith have something to say.

“Mr. McMicheal,” the maid interrupted, turning to him. “Will you be staying for supper?”

“Ah. No,” he answered. “I’ve some papers to draft up, I’m afraid.”

Sale of the land shares Edith held. When he had asked her if selling it was best, or if she wanted to keep it, she had teared up. He’d repeated the options, kneeling by her chair, and she had nodded when he said the word, ‘sell’. More letter-writing. More waiting. But it would get done.

“Can you manage from here, Edith?” Alan asked.

He’d been talking to her since they had escaped. At first, it was breathless words of encouragement, in order to keep himself conscious long enough to see her tended to. After, it had been confessions and explanations. He had told her how her former-husband had asked him to show him where to do drive the knife in. He’d explained how Thomas had tried, near the end, from what he could tell to atone for his compliance and his willful deception.

Edith had struggled through those talks, making eye contact, her expression unreadable. Her lip quivering until she would bite it. Alan had not drawn them out very long.

After the physician’s consult, Alan had left her alone for a while. A few days only, to collect his thoughts and plead with his sister via correspondence. But then he had come back and told her of his studies. His stories were stilted; he had no talent for weaving words, not as she did. But when he spoke, even if she was silently weeping as he did so, Edith seemed grateful.

Now, at the landing at the bottom of the stairs to the Cushing estate, Alan knelt by her chair as he so often had in the past few weeks.

“If you can, I’ll be by in the morning for breakfast. Try to get some rest. I asked Beth to make the guest bedroom up for you, just until we can get an elevator install-”

“No,” Edith said simply, her voice croaky and soft.

Alan stopped, his lips parted. He waited as she reached out and laid a palm on his forearm.

“No, the elevator won’t be necessary,” she said, with as much dignity as she had ever held. “I can make do in the guest bedroom.”

Alan blinked at her, and she inhaled deeply.

“When I am able to walk again, I’ll shift up to my old room. It will keep until then,” she finished, giving him a soft smile that did not reach her eyes. Edith took in a long, steady breath, and let it out in a small sigh. “I think I’d like a late breakfast tomorrow, wouldn’t you, Alan?”

“Y-yes. Of course."

He didn’t realize that a tear had escaped his eye until she reached up and swiped at his cheek gently with her thumb, her wrist smelling faintly and impossibly of blood.


	2. Tend To Your Garden

Life carried on. More than life, however, rumors carried further still. They seemed to have a more tenable grip on the Cushing name than Alan had ever expected would take.

He had tried to keep quiet about the information he’d discovered from Mr. Holly, and it seemed that, to her credit, Eunice had kept quiet as well. The murders, the deception, he had tried to keep it to a minimum. He had devised it that way, not out of mistrust but out of a strange, possessive guilt.

As if he had let this happen to Edith. As if guilty that he had been prepared to let it happen to Eunice herself, had she wed into the monstrous family.

The rumors persisted with great vigor, despite having little to no solid facts behind them. None of the gossip was as intensely degrading as the truth, but dulled teeth cut nonetheless.

The ones whispered outside of church were usually the least combative. Certain gossip was allowed in the eyes of the Lord, apparently. The one Alan overheard the most often after service spoke of Edith’s former husband falling ill to a terminal disease. According to well-meaning busy-bodies, upon losing her brother Lucille Sharpe had ended her own life. Edith had been found alone in a dilapidated mansion, driven partially mad and to self-harm from loneliness.

It made Alan’s skin crawl to think of.

The rumors that lurked in corners of the local bars, however, were more realistic, even though Alan doubted their perpetrators knew it. Those rumors spoke of two against one, of the Sharpes against the Cushings. There had been an argument and it had gotten out of hand, they said. Both of the Sharpes had gone mad, they said, hurting the poor American angel they had spirited away to be milked for the last of her estate. They’d died at Edith’s hands when she had retaliated in self defense, they said. Nothing they held against the poor girl. But she was a killer, don’t you forget it.

It was the closest approximation that Alan had given to the physician who’d examined their wounds back in England. The Sharpes had taken Edith for her money, Alan had revealed them, they had attacked Alan and Edith both, and then Edith had escaped at the grisly expense of her innocence.

But back home, it wasn’t enough to allow a young woman to live with a murder on her conscience. People added extra, like molded berries to a pie crust long decayed. As if it could make the thing more appetizing, but merely made it all the more morbid.

“I heard she is with child,” Alan overheard a woman whisper at the market.  “A Sharpe child.”

By the flower stall, perhaps? He turned to confront them, but they were gone.

“She knew she was being had,” another breathed, this time by the tavern where Alan had meant to meet a former patient for a drink.

He whirled at the voice, but the speaker was nowhere to be seen. From behind him, he heard another agree.

“She played them. Pretended to be innocent, waited for her knight to arrive, and they took the Sharpes’ money, they did.”

Alan knew there was no money. But he also knew better than to run his mouth.

Unable to locate the source of such rumors in order to confront them, Alan found himself seeking refuge at his mother’s house.

His relationship with his mother had strengthened in the wake of the horrors he'd witnessed. He still disagreed with her on most things, but she seemed to have mellowed towards Edith considerably. She would advise him on how to respond properly to such comments, or she would merely listen as he vented the poison of the rumors aloud. Her poise, however cold it seemed at times, was something Alan sought out in his family home rather than returning to his empty flat.

Eunice was still living with his mother, however, so Alan never stayed long.

Contrary to what he'd expected, Alan felt more distant from his sister than ever before. It wasn't as if she had even done anything wrong, or uncharacteristic. In fact, she'd gone above and beyond what he had assumed she'd be willing to do.

Eunice helped him with paperwork without even a complaint, and he had heard from their mother that Eunice had taken to inviting Edith to her own small music gatherings from time to time. Not that Edith always accepted, but the offer alone was sweet. Alan knew it must have been hard for his sister to swallow her pride to even ask.

Sometimes, when he was sitting in his office alone after having seen to a patient, Alan would push a glass paperweight around in a circle and try to figure out why he felt so disturbed around her. His sister was obviously trying so hard to make amends.

Maybe it was the guilt he felt at having almost let her marry Thomas. Maybe it was the disgust he felt for the relationship Edith had described between the Sharpe siblings. Maybe it was envy, a bitterness at seeing Eunice still engaged in her everyday life because she hadn't seen what two people driven to the brink of exasperation were capable of.

It was too deep a cut to press on, however, and so Alan did not press.

Sometimes when his thoughts became too dark, he would not go to his mother's; he would go to Edith’s. It was a different kind of solace from the lies there, seeing as Edith never placed stock in the words of others. He would confess to her how upset he was on her behalf, how disturbing the rumors were, and she would merely smile wanly and shake her head.

“They’re not worth your time,” she would tell him. "You know the truth of what happened, and that will be enough."

"Don't you want to tell people, though?" he'd inevitably ask her.

"The families of the other wives know," she would remind him. And it was usually the end of their conversation on the subject.

He could not argue with her logic nor her sense, at least in regards to the latest scandal. She seemed to intuit that the rumors would just have to shrivel and die of their own accord, like a thorny vine too deeply rooted and frightful to merely cut away.

Alan always knew that going to the Cushing estate would afford him such clarity with which to let go of such minor annoyances. But he often found himself wondering what Edith was afforded from his visits, if anything at all.

She had taken up gardening lately, though he couldn't say why. She rarely picked up her pen anymore, preferring to pick up a small spade instead. She spent a lot of time outside in the greenhouse, her black mourning garb topped with a simple apron his mother had lent her. It was fascinating, seeing her with her reading glasses but not reading. Every time he came upon her in such a state, she always turned to him with an air of quiet happiness.

And every time, her smile did not quite reach her eyes.

“What’s this?” he asked her today, holding up a muddy root as he closed the greenhouse door behind him.

"You're here early," she said, glossing over his question. "Were you not to have lunch with a client today?"

"He canceled," Alan avoided.

In truth, he had ended the lunch quickly, because the man had wanted to merely interview him about Edith. He'd declined, as politely as possible, and made his way here.

"Which is why," he added, "I am very intrigued by this... thing."

“That-” Edith took the tuber from his hand and held it up further to the noon sun. “Is a dahlia bush. Or it will be, come summertime.”

“I can’t recall what a dahlia flower looks like for the life of me,” he said, half-teasing. Edith glanced at him over the rim of her glasses, a chastising look that he rather liked.

“Of course you know dahlias,” she insisted, and unceremoniously she shuffled her skirts and knelt on the floor to begin preparing the soil in the box by the door. “They’re your mother’s favorite flower.”

“You think so?” Alan asked, and as he crouched beside her, he gave a little grunt and held his hand up beneath his armpit.

She paused in her ministrations, the smell of earth and her light perfume following her every movement. She held out a hand to his arm, steadying him. Much as he liked her touch, he gave her a little grimace of a smile to show her there was no need to worry. Once he settled, she spoke again.

“You’re saying they’re not?”

“They could be,” he shrugged, drawing out his teasing. “I highly doubt that they are, though.”

She set her spade down, the gloves on her hands too big for her fingers. Her father’s perhaps? Or the gardener’s?

“Alan.”

There it was. He’d planted the seed of doubt, and she was unsure of whether to play along with him or ask him to explain. Just like when they were children, and she tried to memorize passages of books to test his knowledge of their authors. He would quote her something off the top of his head, tell her it was from a newly printed volume, and she would look at him and say his name firmly.

It was a gentle order for him to answer, and clearly at that. It meant she wanted to know if she was wrong.

He tilted his head, smirking.

“I’m just saying, on my mother’s birthday I’ve never heard her request dahlia in the entryway.” He ran his hand over the tilled topsoil, as if he knew a damn thing about plants. He could see Edith narrowing her eyes at him. “She usually asks for sunflowers.”

“You’re incorrigible,” she said, but he could hear that little note of uncertainty in her voice and he turned to her with confidence.

“I am nothing if not honest,” he replied. “Where did you hear that my mother liked dahlia?”

“From Eunice.”

“That explains it then,” Alan said with a broad smile. Edith’s face fell, and he lowered his voice as if sharing a conspiracy. “That’s Eunice’s favorite flower, not my mother’s.”

“Oh.” Edith set her hands down on her lap, and Alan could see her sink back onto her haunches. She paused for a moment, reflecting, then turned to him with a sharpness to her that he hadn’t expected. Abruptly, his teasing ended.

“Edith?”

“Seems like a trifling thing to lie about, don’t you think?” she asked, her wide eyes staring at him in flinted defensiveness.

It was an unfamiliar expression. It sharpened her, to the point where Alan felt his chest ache.

“I don’t think Eunice lied to you in order to hurt you, Edith. I think she was merely teasing you.”

“I’ve had enough teasing, from everyone. Including your family,” Edith said, taking her gloves off and setting them on the edge of the pot. The tuber remained there in the soil, uncovered, looking almost grotesque in its twisted dirtiness. Like a hand, half-buried. “I don't appreciate this. I thought to do something nice for your mother, for how she’s helped me around the house since…”

“Edith,” Alan caught her hand in his, and she immediately recoiled. He brought his hand back to his lap, trying not to look hurt. He took a breath and said quietly, slowly, “Eunice teases not out of malice, but out of affection. When we were children, you remember how she used to talk to you?”

“How she _wouldn’t_ talk to me, you mean,” Edith answered dully.

“Exactly. She was never smart enough to battle wits with you, and she knew it,” Alan said, trying not to be unkind. "So she avoided you, right?"

It was difficult for anyone to match wits with his dear friend, his sister had never stood a chance. Edith merely rolled her eyes, but she could not deny it. Eunice had ignored Edith when they were children, sometimes for weeks on end. She had preferred to merely say nasty things out of earshot, when they were much younger and every slight had seemed so dramatic.

“You cannot be serious.” Edith narrowed her gaze, training him with a squint. “You’re telling me that because she lies to me, I’m to assume she likes me?”

“Yes,” Alan chuckled. Edith frowned, and he continued. “If she were truly trying to manipulate you, she could have said any other flower instead of _her_ preference. Could she not?”

Edith stayed quiet.

“Did she make her joking face?”

Edith’s eyebrow quirked, and she looked positively confused.

“When she jokes,” Alan elaborated, “she does it poorly, but you can tell she’s doing it because she purses her lips like this.”

He demonstrated, a half smile where he pressed his lips together almost duck-like. Edith gave a scoff of a laugh, seemingly smiling against her will. It eased his heart, and Alan tried once again to touch her. He rested his hand, palm up, on the edge of the planter.

After a second’s hesitation, Edith took it in hers, squeezing lightly.

“She made that face,” she said quietly, almost as if she didn’t want to admit it aloud.

“I thought she might have.”

“Mmm.”

When Edith said nothing more, Alan took it for understanding, and not for moping.

“Plant the dahlia,” he said, giving her hand a little shake. “And I’ll find some sunflower seeds the next time I go to the market.”

“You don’t have to-”

“I think it’s a nice gesture,” he insisted. “Let me do that, at least.”

“Thank you Alan,” she whispered, and he was once again overwhelmed with the absurd need to protect his friend. But from what, the greenhouse’s overwarm air?

Before he could think better of it, Alan brought her hand to his lips. He kissed her knuckles chastely, but firmly, and she stared at him as he did so. Her lower lip quivered for but a moment, and then she broke into another smile.

“I know…” he stopped and pressed his lips to her knuckles again, trying to regain some strength in his voice, but it would not come. He lowered his voice to keep it steady, and brought her hand to the center of his chest. “I know that you were lied to… by someone you loved dearly.”

Her eyes darkened, but she did not look away. Ever defiant, ever stubborn, Alan could think of so many reasons why he enjoyed her company. It broke his heart to add _suspicious_ to his list of Edith adjectives.

“I understand that because of his deception, because of Lucille’s deception, it will take you a long time for you to heal,” he continued. “I do not wish for you to rush yourself on Eunice’s account, of all people.”

Edith was staring at him, but he could not read her expression. It was something akin to quizzical, as if she were piecing together his words with detective-level specificity. Or perhaps lucidly trying to read his mind. It made him uncomfortable, but he reminded himself that she had always been observant. It was what made her writing so real, so shockingly relatable. Alan sighed, recognizing Edith even in the midst of her turmoil.

“You don’t have to trust her, or anyone. Ever,” Alan said with finality as he pulled away and held her hand in both of his. “Not if you don’t want to.”

She paused, glancing down at the dahlia tuber, as if she were considering his words. Her fingers tightened about his, and for a beautiful moment Alan allowed himself to take her in. Sun streamed through the gold of her hair, made all the brighter by the dark black of her collar up about her neck. The scar on her cheek pink but already healing nicely. Her jaw was set, and strong. Her skin had regained a bit of its color in the past few weeks, and her appetite was slowly but gradually increasing-

“I trust you,” she said without turning to him.

Her voice was soft, but strong, and in that moment, Alan believed her. How could he not? He smiled at her through the warmth of the noon sun and then, with a bit of difficulty, they both stood hand in hand.

“Good,” he said, offering her his arm to take as he righted his cane in his other hand. “Because I was also going to suggest some daisies.”

“Oh?” Edith threaded her arm loosely through his and allowed him to lead her out of the greenhouse. “Who is partial to those?”

“I am,” he said, giving her a little smile as they walked.

She bit her lip, a tiny gesture, but Alan was suddenly too warm. He led them out into the chill of the yard, allowing her a moment to lock the door behind them. When she nuzzled closer to his side against the wind, Alan ignored the way his heart beat fervent and fast. He led them inside for lunch, since he'd apparently skipped his today. And as they entered the Cushing estate together, the griping and gossip surrounding Edith’s name was forgotten, for the moment, in the wake of dahlias and daisies.


	3. Invitation And Insight

“You’re staying for dinner, aren’t you darling?” his mother asked, setting down her book at the table to the side of her armchair.

They were taking tea in her sun room. His mother had been reading through some portions of this season’s latest fashion and fabric trends from Europe, her reading glasses low on her nose, her gaze cautious overtop of their gold rims.

Alan stood up and drew his lips into a thin, forced smile.

“I can’t. I’ve got a consultation in an hour, and then a seminar to prepare for tonight.”

“The seminar upstate?” His mother set her reading glasses down beside her teacup. “That one isn’t for another week, is it?”

“No, but-”

“Come back for dinner, Alan,” she said, her voice firm.

Alan exhaled what would have been the rest of his sentence in a small sigh. He was taking a few steps towards the door even as she spoke, even as he put on an expression of polite acceptance.

“You breeze through for tea but never stay for a proper meal,” his mother insisted, looking exasperated. “I know you’re busy, and I do appreciate that you come by when you can. But I would think you would make more time for us. Especially in the wake of… everything.”

Alan paused at the entryway to her sun-room, the afternoon light filtering in from behind her and hiding her in a silhouetted shadow. But if he squinted, he could tell that it wasn’t exasperation that forced his mother’s posture into rigidness.

It seemed like she was tired. Worried.

Alan smiled again, this time without having to try to.

“I’m sorry, Mother. I’ll be back for dinner.”

“Good,” she picked up her pen, her attention back on her letters. As Alan went to leave, she called after him, “Be a dear and bring Edith with you, if you can.”

Alan hesitated, frowning. He considered leaving, considered just telling his mother he couldn’t get in touch with her, but he could not bite back his words. Walking backwards a few steps, he turned heel and approached his mother once more, careful and calculated.

“Why?”

“Why what, darling?”

“Why do you want me to bring Edith?”

“Is it wrong of me to want to invite someone who has nobody to dine with her?” his mother asked, looking up at him as if she were disappointed in him.

Alan narrowed his eyes.

“No. But you haven’t ever invited her before.”

“Before what, dear?”

“Before this, before her father’s death, before she left with the Sharpes,” Alan listed off quickly. “I don’t mean to be contrary, but I know what opinion you held of her.”

"You are making a greater deal of this than it needs to be," she tried to protest, but Alan was having none of it.

"She's doing better lately," he said softly. "I wouldn't want to compromise the progression of her grief, should this dinner be anything but a dinner."

"You wound me, Alan."

"As you did her, I'm sure," he said softly back.

His mother seemed to stiffen at the barb, but she did not throw one back to him. She paused, as if piecing out how best to reply to such a true, albeit tactless, dredging up of their old dynamics.

“It was hardly a secret that I disapproved of her… intellectual pursuits,” Mrs. McMichael said, barely containing a sniff. Alan grit his teeth. “She was not one for social affairs, I suppose she took after her father in that regard.”

His mother paused, her fingers trailing along the spine of her book as she considered what to say.

“So why now?” Alan prompted.

His mother’s gaze shot to his.

“Because she is alone.”

There was a stillness that hung between them, a silence that still managed to say much. Alan felt the tension in his face diffuse a bit, his expression softening. His mother sighed deeply, and then stood up with a wince he hadn’t noticed before.

Were her joints paining her?

She’d not told him as much.

Mrs. McMicheal strode over to Alan and began to straighten his collar, a sign she was about to say something she didn’t want to. She always preened him when she had no other advice or suggestions to offer.

After a moment, her hands stilled, and she trained him with a level gaze. In that light, she looked so much like Eunice, and Alan could not pinpoint why the thought made him so inexorably sad.

“When you were children,” his mother said, “back when her mother was still alive, I knew the Cushings to be commendable people. Her father was a hard worker, proud without arrogance, confident without entitlement. He had married a woman his equal in that regard, and I admired him and his wife alike. Which is why I allowed the three of you to be exposed to one another in the first place.”

“I know,” Alan said softly.

“She had all of the opportunity, until she didn’t,” his mother said blandly. “Her mother, especially, would have been a good influence on young Edith as she grew into her talents.”

Alan tried not to let the stab of such a remark show on his face.

He remembered, vaguely, what Edith’s mother had looked like. Her hair had been wispy and pale, her eyes delicate. She’d smelled of something fruity, like peaches or nectarines… or maybe that was an invention of his own mind. But he knew positively that she had always been elegantly dressed and delicate to behold.

When she’d fallen ill, it had been swift and fatal.

Edith had changed from that moment on.

“After his wife passed away, I thought to bring Eunice and Edith together further,” his mother continued, her voice conveying almost caustic humor at the thought. “I never expected you to take her under your wing, instead. I never expected you to ignore my attempts to dissuade such a friendship, either, but... you are your own man, dear.”

Alan grit his teeth against any explanation he might have to offer, then forced himself to relax his jaw. The tension he held there did him no services to headaches as of late. Besides, it wasn’t as if his mother was wrong.

It had been natural, to befriend Edith as a child. She was a writer, even before she knew how to hold a pen properly, and she had always devoted her mind to the act of solving rather than submitting.

Eunice had thought her arrogant.

Alan had thought her imaginative.

When the siblings had entertained her in their house, Edith had led them on imaginary adventures across the expansive grounds. Adventures where Eunice complained that there was not enough dress-up and too many hidden monsters. Adventures where Alan felt inspired to the point of overexuberance, sometimes at the expense of windowpanes or precariously perched clocks. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t also been a touch envious of Edith’s dogged imagination.

“I know that you've always disapproved,” he said quietly. “Of our friendship.”

And of her.

“I’m not saying that has changed, for there are a great many things I wish she would do differently. But for all her faults, for all the assumptions that were made and the disrespect that was given, whether real or imagined-” his mother said tonelessly.

Alan resisted an eyeroll at the phrasing.

“-we as McMicheals would do well not to hold onto such resentments.”

He blinked, a bit surprised at the shift in his mother’s tone.

No longer did she sound aloof, as she so often did.

She sounded frail. Small.

He had the sudden urge to hug her to himself, to make sure she was not as fragile as she seemed. To make sure that it was his mother still before him, and not a ghost of her former graces. She was getting older, as they all were, but this was a window he did not want to have to look out of at this moment.

He feared what image would lay beyond the pane.

Mrs. McMicheal seemed to sense his perception. She pursed her lips, then patted his lapel gently with her palm.

“Edith does not deserve to be well and truly alone,” she said with finality. “Not after all the solitude she’s endured already.”

As if that was enough, his mother made to move back to her armchair by the window, but Alan felt an ugly reflex trigger. His words bubbled forth almost without his permission, even when he knew he should accept this and leave it be.

If only he embodied more of his mother’s deliberate tongue-biting efficacy.

“What changed?” he asked again. His mother stopped to look at him, her eyes alight, and he added darkly, “Why do you pity her now, when you didn’t before?”

“Because I underestimated her,” she whispered. As if the words were difficult to exhale. She turned to Alan, her eyes wide and frightened.

The horror in her gaze, the wide honesty, gave Alan a shock, and cold realization hit him like an icy bath.

“She is, in fact, the least pitiable of us all.”

His mother's words frosted over themselves, biting like winter chill at his heart. He wasn’t the only one who regretted not having seen through the Sharpes sooner.

Whatever guilt he must feel for almost letting his sister marry into such a family, his mother must feel even more acutely. Eunice had almost been served to the man on a silver platter, and his mother’s hand had balanced the plate. She’d even sliced at a family friend’s beloved child in order to further such a sacrifice, not caring how far she’d embarrassed Edith in the process.

Alan wondered if Edith’s fanciful presence, however unkindly his mother may have felt towards it, had marked his own home more than he realized. He wondered if her absence was noticeable as they grew older, if the silence in the wake of their intermingling laughter had cut at his mother's heart. He wondered if his mother felt atrocious at having born Edith ill-will; or maybe she felt disgusted at herself for the vindication she’d embodied even as she offered up her own daughter for the taking.

Maybe the ghosts of such interactions, the memories of when she had been cruel instead of kind, made his mother feel too akin to the Sharpes for her own comfort.

But Alan realized, in an almost heavy disquiet, that he did not know his mother well enough to surmise a thing concretely.

This was just a gaze, a few words, and the context was something he made up based off of his own view of the woman before him. The woman whose face was creased with more stress than he’d realized, whose eyes were more tired than she’d want him to note.

The realization made him feel ill, as if he’d bitten down on a fruit to find its innards pulpy and rotten.

Without a word, he nodded his understanding, and his mother sat back by the window facing away from him.

“I’ll see you for dinner,” she said softly. Her voice was prim once more, carefully guarded, any insight he could have hoped to gain now locked away. “The both of you,” she tacked on lightly.

Alan nodded, even though she could not see it, because he did not trust his voice enough to speak.

Ignoring the way his mother’s hands trembled as she picked up her reading glasses from the corner of the side table, he left the room with a sense of puerile guilt resting about his shoulders like a woolen cloak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love exploring family dynamics in the wake of trauma. Hopefully going to have the next chapter up with less of a gap between them in the future <3


	4. The Dinnertable

The dinner wasn’t any less awkward, for all that Alan tried to anticipate it. For one, his mother had unsubtly chosen Edith’s favorite dish as a preliminary course, but rather than owning to it had instead opted to feign ignorance and “good fortune”. Eunice had made eye contact with Edith across the table, and Alan had caught the two women sharing a tiny smirk.

It made his breath catch in his chest, right behind his sternum, in a way that drinking down his glass of water didn’t seem to fix.

For another, Eunice seemed to be stiff and anxious. Over what, Alan couldn't be sure, but his sister's normally breezy demeanor was nowhere to be found. Even when she smiled at Edith, Alan sensed a tension therein.

Rather than address it, he tried to ignore it, and told himself it was all in his mind. His family was kinder than he was giving them credit for, and the suspicion he'd cast on his mother earlier that morning had sat with him like a leaden ball within his stomach for most of the day.

Now was his chance to let that go, to enjoy their company.

And he fully intended to, if he could just look past the initial discomfort.

With that new outlook on the dinner, the appetizer went about as swimmingly as it could have. Alan was pleasantly surprised by Eunice's questions regarding his work, and he elaborated politely between mouthfuls what the seminar next week would entail. He stopped just shy of boring them, even though he could tell that Edith's eyes were alight still with curiosity. However, she did not press him, and neither did his mother. The appetizer ended with Edith complimenting his mother on the new decor of the parlor as their plates were cleared.

“Oh, it’s not new,” his mother said. If she'd left it at that, it would have ended yet another strain of conversation, and Alan paused to cast a glance her way. With a dainty throat clear, his mother elaborated, seemingly intent on softening the haughtiness from her tone. "It's deliberately distressed fabric for the curtains, washed in-"

Edith couldn’t have known. She’d been away for so long, it had been new to her, after all. Alan watched, while picking at his baked oysters and pretending not to notice, as his mother and Edith both attempted to seem interested in what the other was saying. So far, it was working swimmingly, and with each dish the two women seemed to relax more and more.

Eunice’s attention was devoted to carefully cutting miniscule, less than bite-sized pieces with every dish that was sat before her. After asking about his work, she hadn't really said much. Alan spared her a glance every now and again, hoping to catch her eye and share a smirk the way she had with Edith, but his sister did not turn to face him even once. She looked uncomfortable, for a reason Alan couldn’t figure out.

Not that he was focused overmuch on his sister to begin with. His every nerve ending seemed to be attuned to Edith, even though she wasn’t doing more than politely carrying on conversation.

For some reason, her proximity felt… more, to him, today. Maybe it was the way she’d seemed so eager to accept a dinner invitation unprompted, or the way she’d taken his arm as he’d led her to the motorcar awaiting her.

On the ride over, she’d adjusted her shawl about her shoulders as it continuously slipped from the black silk and lace at her neck. Finally, after watching her position it for several minutes as she gazed out the window, Alan had reached over and secured it flat over the buttons near her collarbones.

It had only taken a half a minute, but it had taken all of his willpower to avoid Edith’s gaze on him in that moment. He’d felt it, had been aware of her searching his features even as her limbs grew limp. He'd kept his eyes on the road, ignoring the way her breathing seemed to hitch and the way his skin felt aflame.

They’d been so close.

She’d allowed him to adjust her, to fix her, and when he’d leaned back against his own seat, she’d still been watching him. Without a thank you verbalized, Edith had nudged her elbow with his and smiled.

“Glad you’re here to keep me from looking disheveled,” she’d teased, and Alan had huffed a weak laugh.

“You haven’t seen a mirror yet,” he’d retorted. “I could’ve made it worse.”

She had laughed for him. A small noise, but one he'd cherished deeply nonetheless.

Alan was grateful to have food in front of him now, because in the motorcar for lack of anything better to do, he had resorted to keeping his right hand busy with the buttons on his vest. Twisting at the little smooth rounds and adjusting the chain of his pocket-watch was what had kept him from asking Edith if she was alright, if this was alright, if he could do more.

She hated when he fussed.

On top of that, he’d assumed she would get enough fussing over dinner, if he knew his mother at all.

However, for the most part, the delicate dance between his childhood friend and his mother was simple, light, and almost relaxed. There weren’t any awkward questions past the appetizer, not even when he noted that his mother had finished her glass of wine rather quickly.

Then, lo and behold, the question Alan felt everyone avoiding reared its head just before the main course was to be dished out.

“How are you faring, Edith?” his mother asked. “Have you been getting around easily enough after… everything?”

Alan sat there, silent, morbidly keen to hear her answer as well even though he dared not ask.

To her credit, Edith looked as if she were doing rather well for someone in her circumstances. But she was still but a shadow of her former self. Even though the scars on her leg and feet were invisible to present company, Alan noticed the white line across her left cheek carefully powdered to match the rest of her skin. As he glanced down, averting his gaze from her face, Alan saw her hand twitch.

It was Edith’s left hand, the one that bore the scar of a wedding ring ripped from her knuckle. Not that noticeable to those who weren't looking for it, the scarring was merely a little white spiderweb on her digit that Alan thought to be quite soft and pretty in a dark way.

He noted that her hand tightened and then relaxed slowly.

When he glanced back up to gauge her expression, Edith’s face betrayed no discomfort.

“You’ve had to deal with more than most of us will ever face in a lifetime,” his mother said softly, and when his gaze flicked over he could tell that she meant the sincerity he gleaned from her voice. It surprised him, which trickled shame once more through his veins.

He should give his mother more credit, he knew.

But Alan wondered if perhaps he was the only one at the table to recognize the true extent of the progress that Edith had made since returning from England.

No longer did Edith waver on the stairs, her hand shakily hovering over the banister at all times. Her posture was no longer hunched in pain from her stomach purging the poisons left within her from Allerdale Hall. Her eyes were no longer dull with lack of sleep. Her appetite had returned after several diligent weeks of weaning from rice porridge, lightly blanched vegetables, and bone broth.

Alan had been ecstatic at her progress, as had her physician. She still had to set aside radish slivers, fatty meats, anything with pepper of any kind, and could not indulge in any type of alcohol. She still had circles beneath her eyes, and sometimes took naps early in the afternoon in full view of the sun for lack of sleep during the dark hours of night.

However, even now Edith had a roundness back to her cheeks that Alan had missed, and a healthy glow to the bridge of her nose from being outside so often in the greenhouse.

Thinking of these things, Alan almost answered for her- but did not get the chance.

“I’m doing very well, thank you,” Edith replied, her voice honest and low.

She gave his mother a nod and a sad smile across the table, but Alan couldn't tell if she was acknowledging that it was a difficult subject to talk about over dinner, or that it was a difficult thing to endure. Either way, when she continued, he didn't expect the note of levity he found in her voice.

“I’m convinced it’s the fresh air. That, and Alan’s devotion to my appointments.”

She was looking at him, he could tell, but so was his mother. Alan glanced up only briefly at the clock on the wall beyond the table before reaching for the wine at the edge of his plate. He sipped it gingerly rather than answer either of their stares.

“I had no idea Alan had recommended you a physician nearby,” Mrs. McMichael said softly. “I would have thought he’d have put you in touch with someone more… specialized. Perhaps out of state.”

“There was no need,” Edith said, and her hand came to rest between her dessert fork and Alan’s own cuff.

Just a centimeter or two to the left, and she would be touching his wrist.

“I was also rather stubborn,” Edith remarked, and Alan watched her pinky tap out an unintentional tic against the tablecloth. The beautiful web of scar tissue on her empty ring finger stretched and glimmered in the dim candlelight. “I didn’t want to be very far from home, I’m afraid. So I insisted whatever follow-ups were to be done, would be done here. Luckily, Alan was amenable, and I’m sure he accompanies me as much to catch up with his friends as to ensure my attendance.”

She was baiting his mother, Alan realized.

Good-naturedly, to be sure, but baiting nonetheless.

Normally such admissions of hardheadedness would receive at least an eyeroll from his mother, if not a snide comment about Edith’s inability to do anything she hadn’t decided upon herself. It was his Edith here, the one who didn't mind being playful at the expense of her dignity, the one who exuded confidence.

Mrs. McMichael, if she realized, did not rise to its intent.

“I’m glad you could remain in New York,” she said quietly. “Were I in your position, I must confess I don’t know if I would have the strength to stay with all of the ghosts that remained.”

Alan’s heart beat out a quick, nervous patter against his sternum, but Edith seemed to take no offense to the mention of her ordeal. In fact, she inclined her head as if she truly accepted that word of condolence.

A small part of him wondered if his mother knew, if she was hinting that she knew, about the real dangers Edith had suffered. After a pregnant pause, Alan realized that his mother meant ghosts in a metaphorical sense instead of a literal one.

Eunice gave a small exhale across the table, and Alan wondered vaguely if she was waiting for a fight as well. One that it seemed would not come.

Before they could say anything further, the main course arrived.

“I apologize for the dim tone,” his mother said hurriedly as the plates were set before them. “Let’s focus instead on this delicious dinner, shall we?”

Venison stew, with elaborately arranged vegetables on a bed of rice. Another of Edith’s favorites, or at least it had been when she was a child. It had been altered, containing no spices within the stew sauce, so the effect was far less impressive than it would have been normally.

But seeing the effort his mother was undertaking to allow Edith to eat with them sans having to pick apart her meal, the effort made to make her feel welcomed... it made the food taste positively divine.

After a few minutes of silence, broken apart only by Eunice’s dainty throat clears and the accidental chiming scrape of a fork tine against china, Alan finally turned to Edith since first pushing in her chair.

“You know, I saw Katherine DeMarco the other day.”

He glanced across the table to Eunice.

“You remember her, right?”

His sister nodded, looking a bit skittish.

Alan realized with a stab of guilt that this was the first time in a while that he had address Eunice directly and face-to-face with a smile on. When she'd asked him about work, he'd spoken without looking up.

He softened his expression, and the women took another bite of the stew as if in sync with one another.

“She was in the library last week, I think, and she was putting up posters for the annual egg hunt,” Alan finished with a smile.

Eunice gave a little laugh, just as Alan was hoping she would, but Edith looked confused.

“Oh, don’t tell me you don’t remember Katherine,” Alan teased. “It’s only been about twenty years.”

“Her father was the Rabbit, dear,” Mrs. McMichael added primly. “You were quite young, but I would’ve thought you’d remember.”

“Remind me,” Edith said.

“You know. The Rabbit,” she replied with a little hand wave, as if she couldn’t think of how else to more easily describe Mr. DeMarco. The effect was so funny that Alan had to bite his lip to keep from blurting a nervous laugh. When Edith shook her head, his mother sighed. “You were the only one who didn’t cry at his costume. It had the teeth painted on, and the-” his mother gestured to her front with an eyeroll. "That horrendous bowtie stapled right into the fur."

“Even the adults wailed at the sight, and it almost put an end to the egg hunt altogether that year,” Alan said with a chuckle.

“I wish I could forget,” Eunice said with a dramatic little shiver.

“I’m just happy it didn’t traumatize Katherine to the point where she didn’t want to carry on the legacy,” Alan teased. “The egg hunt is still alive and well, with another hopefully less-horrifying Rabbit to help the young ones find their treasures.”

“What a tradition,” his mother said wistfully, giving a smile down to the wine in her glass. Alan almost asked her whether she was feeling nostalgic or derisive, but he didn’t get a chance.

“The Rabbit was never your priority, it actually makes a lot of sense," Eunice giggled.

“Pardon?” Edith asked.

“It makes sense that you don’t remember him. You were so competitive, Edith,” Eunice piped up, for what felt like the first true time that night.

Alan noticed Edith’s hands relaxed at her plate, her cutlery stilling, but Eunice was unaware.

“I remember the first year we went on the hunt together, I got tired and wanted to stop, but you refused. You held my hand and dragged me through the gardens until your father caught up and told us the hunt had ended an hour prior.”

“I don’t remember that,” Edith said softly, a wan little smile playing across her features. Like gauzy summer light through miniature dust particles in the air, barely noticeable.

“It was clear as day for me. I had two pigtails all done up with pastel ribbons, and they kept hitting my face when I ran after you to keep up,” Eunice said with a grin. “We were… oh, maybe six? Seven?”

“Yes,” Edith said slowly. “You cried because your white patent leather shoes got scuffed with green from the grass blades, refused to continue until I took them off for you.”

“Yes!”

“Then we went running past the boys, and Gregory tried to pull the ribbons out of your hair-”

“That’s right!”

“-and I smashed three of the eggs in his basket.”

Alan winced, because he remembered watching that sudden tirade. It had been right when their families were first coming together, when Eunice was like a younger sister to both him and Edith alike, when Edith's assertiveness was something he was jealous of.

Alan remembered that day in a different light. He’d refused to be on her team, and had instead tried to lead a gaggle of unkempt boys.

It had not ended well.

“Oh, the look on your mother’s face when you showed up with green socks at the end!”

“There was no saving them,” Mrs. McMichael sighed. “Not after she spent an entire egg hunt traipsing after you over hill and dale with her shoes in her basket. And no eggs.”

“For fear of ruining her shoes!”

Edith laughed loudly, and Alan thought his heart was fit to burst.

How long had it been since he’d heard such a round, uninhibited cry from her? Not a chuckle, not a breathy giggle, but a true laugh?

“That’s right!” Edith giggled. “And poor Alan was on a team with-”

“-Anthony Dellers, yes,” Mrs. McMichael chuckled as well, wiping the corner of her mouth with a napkin as she spoke. “Wonderful boy, very quick to help others. I would have thought he’d have joined the military, but," she sighed once more. "That shows what I know.”

“I wonder what’s he up to now?”

“Most likely still in Greenwich,” Alan said, unable to raise his voice more than a murmur, his shock at Edith’s mirth keeping him frozen in place.

“Hopefully he’s learned not to sit on his basket anymore,” Edith said, and it sounded so much like an innuendo that Alan snorted into his drink. As if to punctuate the mirth at the table, Mrs. McMichael set her wine glass down and covered her own laughter with the back of her hand. “Do you remember that?” Edith asked, grinning wildly. "He got angry at me afterwards! As if I made him do it!"

"Well, did you?" Alan asked, teasing.

Edith swatted lightly at his arm, and he grinned, helpless.

“It’s hard to forget,” his mother said. “Especially given how disappointed Alan was.”

"Who said I was disappointed?" Alan asked, pretending to be flustered.

His sister snickered, and he made a playful grimace at her over the table. She crossed her eyes, something he hadn't seen her do in years, but then when their mother glanced over, Eunice dropped the expression and moved to cover her lips with her napkin.

“He was so frustrated that his friends found less eggs than Edith,” his sister said, and Alan could tell she was blushing even from across the table.

"Even though it wasn't a contest," he said, turning to his mother, "what can I say? I wanted to win."

Pointing at Eunice across the table, unable to contain his smile, he tried to put on a stern expression.

"You could've been on my team, you know," Alan said with a shake of his head. "What a little traitor."

Eunice smiled broadly into her napkin, but said nothing.

“You can't hold it against Eunice for having excellent judge of character,” Edith brushed his wrist with her fingertips, and Alan forgot how to breathe. “You should’ve been on my team, and then none of that nasty basket-sitting business would have even mattered.”

He meant to say something. To tease her back like he normally did. But his chest was too full, his body too warm, and all Alan could do was smile at her. She wasn’t even looking at him, she was facing his sister, covering her smile with one hand.

“Edith,” Eunice said, laughter making her voice breathless. “Please tell me you remember the aftermath, too. When your family came over to ours for supper?”

“Oh, I do remember that part!” Edith said, turning to Alan with a smile. “Don’t you, Alan?”

He found his voice again when their eyes connected. He felt a trill run through him, like a string plucked, and he seemed to see it in her too. The way her smile faltered a moment, her eyes wide and happy.

“I don’t, actually,” Alan said stubbornly, even as he gave Eunice a conspiratorial wink across the table.

Edith, her stew abandoned for the moment, reached out and held onto his elbow. He’d been midway to bringing another spoonful of venison to his lips, but he set it down as she pulled playfully on his arm.

“Liar,” she accused.

“What are you all talking about now?” Mrs. McMichael asked, her fork pressing into a cauliflower floret on her plate as she trained Alan with a narrowed gaze.

“Alan’s performance after the egg hunt, of course.”

“Eunice-”

“Performance?”

“Mother-”

Alan felt like his attention was caught three ways, and it felt so achingly familiar and ancient that he didn’t know where to look next.

“The bunny pajamas, of course,” Edith said, her words barely intelligible over her gasping laughs.

Both his sister and his dearest friend seemed to collapse into their chairbacks, their silverware propped against their plates as they laughed at his six-year-old embarrassment. Alan feigned indignation, even as he felt a grin split across his face.

“I will have you know I had no say in the matter,” he protested, taking a bite of venison as if he wanted to put an end to the subject. His attempt at seriousness only seemed to make his sister laugh harder.

His mother looked almost put out, until he saw her lips twitch.

“Excuse me young ladies,” she said primly, “but I was the one to buy him those ridiculous pajamas.”

Edith stilled, clearing her throat to try to regain some dignity, until Eunice practically snorted into the back of her hand. Alan lost it, then, laughing along with them, his words barely audible hisses.

“The ears were the size of my arms, Mother!”

“And they kept- kept- kept falling in front of his eyes,” Eunice gasped out. “So he couldn’t walk straight. He walked into the corner of the fireplace!”

"I still have the scar!"

“He was so cute,” Mrs. McMichael protested, but her smile had already escaped her. It was over.

The entire table devolved into laughter, everyone in turn adding to the story.

Alan explained how he’d tried to lead his regiment of snotty five year olds, in order to prove to Edith that he was just as good at being a leader. Edith seemed to find that hilarious, especially given how many of the boys had given up on the hunt and been found eating sweets and making grass-blade whistles underneath the steps of the church not long after the hunt began.

Eunice detailed how, at service on Easter Sunday the following year, the boys' troop had tried to get the upper hand in the stupidest way possible. Anthony the egg-sitter and Alan's other dependable quitters had banded together and corralled a goose into the vestibule while service was ongoing. As the girls had sung in the choir, and a few lucky parents hid eggs outside in the park by the church's expansive grounds, the boys had tried to calm the goose.

It had ended up messing itself all over the entire vestibule, and biting Anthony so hard the poor boy had refused to even take a basket. No less sit on it.

As the dinner table continued to giggle over the memories, they all in turn brought forth more and more ancient snippets from their past. The ghosts of Edith’s ordeal were replaced with ghosts of their former selves, happy ones, ones that floated like incense about their minds and soothed with their memory and their love. The kitchen staff took away their first course, and then they had dessert, and coffee, and then fruit, and finally a nightcap.

When Edith had to refuse the alcohol served her, Alan did as well. She glanced up at him from over her shoulder, most likely about to say something along the lines of ‘you should do what you want’ or some other such stubborn thing. God forbid he show her any act of solidarity she might mistake for sacrifice.

Instead of letting her speak, Alan reached over with his fork and took a large chunk of the remainder of her cheesecake.

It had been too rich for her to finish, he was willing to bet, but she still swatted at his hand playfully.

“Glutton,” she accused lightly.

Alan didn’t deny it. As he closed his smirking lips about the dessert, seeing her answering smile was richer than the cake.

Across the table, his family members were distracted. As Eunice began to pour herself and his mother a spot of sherry in the corner as the staff cleared the table, Mrs. McMichael had stood in order to go and fetch a photo album. She suggested they adjourn to the drawing room for their drinks, and even motioned to the little plate in front of Edith with the half-eaten wedge of cake upon it. Eunice followed her to the doorway, a small glass in each of her hands.

“Bring that as well, dear," his mother said, nodding to the cheesecake. "No sense in wasting it.”

As soon as Mrs. McMichael turned her back to leave the room, Alan turned back to Edith’s plate and raised his fork as if he were going to take the last bite for himself.

Edith caught his hand, lowering it so that their fingers touched the tablecloth. Behind him, he could hear his mother and sister calling to one another from the salon as they brought out old albums. He could hear the grandfather clock in the entryway chime, the hour late, the oil lamps low.

And before him, his sweet friend.

Touching his hand.

Leaning forward.

Smiling in a way he hadn’t seen since before he’d left for his studies.

They’d been in love once, hadn’t they? Some unspoken, protective, faint love that Alan had put on pause by leaving. He hadn’t meant to. He had merely been focused on his studies in the same way Edith had been driven to hers. Maybe he’d assumed the push and pull of youth, the ebb and flow of want, would only magnify with time.

But when he’d returned, her affection had been split with Sir Thomas, a man who had taken every opportunity to lavish her with all of the attention Alan hadn’t. And even when he'd shown her that he shared her interests, that he too found paranormal instances fascinating and believable, she had already drifted just out of reach of his hands.

Thomas had even read her writing. Something that Edith had not ever offered to Alan.

The prickle of bitterness at the edge of his mind wasn’t something he wanted to bear, at least not on a pleasant night like tonight. He pushed it from his mind, focusing instead on how smooth and soft her fingers were against his. She was here now.

Here, and safe.

“Thank you,” Edith mouthed, and Alan realized belatedly he was staring at her lips.

He raised his eyes to hers, saw the glimmer therein, and his lips parted momentarily to let some sort of words escape.

He didn’t get a chance.

Leaning forward smoothly, the both of them dipping towards one another as if the act was choreographed, Edith drew Alan down and planted a kiss at the corner of his mouth. He felt his lips tighten instinctively, a returned gesture made to the bergamot-scented air by her cheek, and then she had withdrawn.

Blinking brightly, she gave an airy little laugh.

“We… we should join them in the other room.”

He made no move, but not for lack of wanting.

He wanted more than anything to draw her forward again, to have her sigh against him happily, to feel the weight of her in this capacity, not merely because he was supporting her as she walked. He wanted to have a second chance, not only at the kiss but at  _her_ , at  _them_ , at whatever they had between them that felt so warm and secretive.

But he couldn't.

“Right,” he whispered, the distance between them more than mere inches.

Her hand was still in his, when had their fingers become entangled? When did she slide her palm against his own?

“We should... probably...”

“Alan,” Edith mouthed, the tip of her tongue tapping her teeth, her lips parted in a grin. "Let's go."

He swallowed hard, coming back to himself, and laughed off the flush of embarrassment that crept up on his neck at being caught staring.

“My apologies,” he murmured. “I’m, ah, a little distracted tonight.”

“I’ll consider accepting your apology,” Edith smiled, “if you would be so kind as to escort me to the other room.”

“Are you sure?” Alan winced. “More humiliating childhood memories await us, you can be sure of it.”

“That’s what I’m counting on,” she said, smiling foxlike in the dim light of the dining room.

Alan put on an overly beleaguered expression, one he knew she found more amusing than anything, and with a sigh he helped them both to stand.

Arm in arm, they made their way to the salon. When they sat, nobody drew any attention to the way Edith shuffled so close to him on the sofa that her hand grazed his knee every time she reached for a photograph.

Maybe it was an accident, the way her knuckles traced across his lap as she flipped through old prints. A soft, comfortable, alluring accident after that innocent gesture of friendship she'd bestowed on him in the other room.

A gesture of friendship that he could taste at the corner of his lips.

Alan couldn't tell what to feel. Instinctively, he knew the signs were there. The small touches, the invitations, the smiles, the sighs. But this was someone he'd grown up with. Someone who knew him so well that he sometimes worried he was broadcasting his thoughts to her through telepathic means. Someone who challenged him to be more, to do more. Someone he respected even more than he wanted.

And so Alan said nothing.

He sat back, basking momentarily in the happiness his home contained as they talked the dark of night slowly and steadily away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like, in the movie, we're supposed to dislike Eunice and Mrs. McMichael because they're so focused on image and propriety, a stark contrast to our sass-master Edith. But I just headcanon that, seeing as they were all present for her mother's funeral, there had to have been a time when Edith was close to them? When the willfulness was endearing?
> 
> I just wanted to explore that nostalgia here for a bit. Also, to have them kiss >.>
> 
> Thank you for reading through! Sorry for the gaps between updates!

**Author's Note:**

> I truly adore the tragedy and heartbreak of Thomas and Edith's love. But I want to explore the love she also has for Alan. I didn't find many fics that did this, so if you know of any, please tell me! I'd love to read them <3


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